As the market of smartphones or tablet PCs has grown in the mobile industry, a conventional mobile communication service based on feature phones has been subject to a great change. A smartphone does not simply operate as a mobile phone, but operates as a small hand-held computer to provide various functions that have not been provided before. Furthermore, a smartphone enables provision of new services.
A smart device is provided with an application environment associated with operating system software, on the basis of improved computing functions. A platform guarantees distribution of various applications, and there exist applications installed in a smart device according to selection by a user via the platform to provide various utilities and game environments. Users may enjoy new user experiences by installing various applications in their smart devices.
For example, users perform voice communication or make calls for free using messenger applications. Furthermore, the users exchange text messages (mobile instant messages (MIMs)) using the messenger applications. When the text messages are exchanged through the messenger applications, smart devices display notification messages for notifying reception of messages on displays with sound effects.
A notification message for a smart device is not limited to a messenger application. In the case of SNS applications such as Facebook™ or Twitter™, each SNS platform transmits a notification message to a smart device of a user to notify various events occurring on a SNS account of the user. Furthermore, when an update event of a game or utility application occurs or messages are transmitted/received through a messenger module of the application, a notification message is also transmitted to a smart device.
It does not cause a particular problem to attempt communication or “transmit” text messages using various types of application software, since such an act is voluntarily done by a user. However, users often do not welcome a communication such as a call or a certain notification message received suddenly from somebody.
In particular, spam messages or advertising message are representative examples of such a case. When a call connection for a telephone call is requested or a text message is received by a smart device, the smart device emits a predetermined reception sound. The reception sound is selected from a ring sound and a vibration sound according to a user setting. Whenever a spam call or a spam message is received, a smart device emits a ring sound or a vibration sound, bothering or annoying a user of the device. Sometimes, such a message startles a user or disrupts work of the user. In particular, due to overflowing application software of smart devices at the present day, bother or annoyance caused by reception sounds is more increased. This situation is totally different from that caused by conventional spam calls/spam messages.
Meanwhile, it has been an issue for a long time in this field to block spam calls or spam message in order to protect the rights and interests of users. Various techniques have been applied to block such calls or messages. One of representative techniques is to automatically block a spam communication so that the spam communication is not received if a user registers a sender of the spam communication in a device. However, conventional techniques are limited since the conventional techniques do not consider a psychological state and request of a user who is not willing to receive a communication even if the communication is not a spam communication. Furthermore, incoming spam text messages, i.e., spam SMS or MMS messages, sent using telephone numbers may be blocked, but it is difficult to block various notification messages, call attempts and text messages of MIM operated on the basis of an account and an address book of a smart device application.
Due to a human relationship or psychological phenomenon of a user, the user may be or may not be willing to receive a communication depending on a sender of the communication even if the communication is not a spam communication. This is particularly true for people nowadays who are living in the flood of messages. However, in many cases, a specific sender cannot be registered as a spam sender only for the reason that the user is not willing to receive a communication from the specific sender. If the specific sender is registered as a spam sender, even important, urgent or essential information from the specific sender may be blocked. Therefore, the user may be subject to misunderstanding or criticism with respect to a human relationship, or, sometimes, unexpected loss or conflict may occur.
To solve the above-mentioned problems, the inventor of the present invention has completed the present invention after conducting research with an effort for a long time.